Nanosecond pulsed laser ablation of AleCueFe quasicrystalline material: Effects of solvent and fluence R. Rawat a , A. Tiwari a , N. Arun b, c , S.V.S. Nageswara Rao b, c , A.P. Pathak b , Yagnesh Shadangi d , N.K. Mukhopadhyay d , S. Venugopal Rao e , A. Tripathi a, * a Department of Physics, School of Physical Sciences, Sikkim University 6th mile Samdur, 737102, Sikkim, India b School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, 500046, Telangana, India c Centre for Advanced Studies in Electronics Science and Technology (CASEST), University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, 500046, Telangana, India d Department of Metallurgical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi Varanasi, 221005, Uttar Pradesh, India e Advanced Centre of Research in High Energy Materials (ACRHEM), University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, 500046, Telangana, India article info Article history: Received 19 August 2020 Received in revised form 13 October 2020 Accepted 6 November 2020 Available online 16 November 2020 Keywords: Laser ablation Dealloying Nanocomposites Solvent effects Core-void-shell NPs Hollow NPs abstract Nanosecond laser pulses were used to synthesize Cu/CuO/Fe 3 O 4 and Al 2 O 3 nanocomposites by ablating Al eCueFe quasicrystal (QC) in two different solvents, namely ethanol and deionized water. The ablation was performed for 15 min with two different laser fluences of 40 J/cm 2 and 80 J/cm 2 in both the media. The effects of these solvents have been studied to understand the structural and morphological trans- formations of nanoparticles using microscopic and spectroscopic techniques. X-ray diffraction (XRD), selected area electron diffraction (SAED) and Raman spectroscopy studies revealed the formation of Cu/ CuO/Fe 3 O 4 and Al 2 O 3 nanocomposites in both the solvents. Furthermore, transmission elctron micro- scopy/high resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM/HRTEM) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) in combination with the energy dispersive X-ray mapping established the formation of NPs with a typical core-void-shell structure evolved in presence of ethanol, showing the crystalline CueFe phase in the core and amorphous Al 2 O 3 phase in the shell. However, in the case of deionized water, the hollow structured NPs were obtained consisting of oxides of Cu, Fe and Al. The mechanisms of the formation of two structures in these two media are controlled by the Kirkendall diffusion process, which appears to be dependent on the physical properties of the solvent i.e., thermal conductivity, viscosity and, polarity. Based on the experimental observation, a possible mechanism for the observed morphology is discussed. © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction With the evolution of nanosciences and nanotechnologies, several studies have been focused on manipulating the properties of nanoparticles (NPs) by controlling their size, composition and morphology. As research on nanomaterials has increased consid- erably in recent years, the main objective has gradually moved from the synthesis, morphological control and characterization of properties to technological development of multifunctional NPs for applications. One way to achieve these goals is to coat the NPs with one or more layers of other materials possessing interesting properties. The multi-metal NP/nanostructure (such as core-shell, nanosheets, nano-porous, hollow NPs, nanotubes etc) integrate with various physical and chemical properties of the individual components, possibly demonstrating higher performance with respect to their characteristic single component [1 ,2]. Conse- quently, the efforts for fabrication of multimetallic or composites NPs has significantly increased recently, because of their improved electrochemical, mechanical, electromagnetic [3e5] and catalytic properties [6] compared to that of mono or bimetallic NPs. The multimetallic NPs as well as their metal oxide composites, such as CuO, Fe 3 O 4 and Al 2 O 3 have attracted significant interest as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries due to their high theoretical capacity [7 ,8]. There have been much researches on binary NPs [9e12], but there are few studies on the micro-structural evolution and phase stability of ternary or multi-metallic NPs. Among all these materials, Al-based ternary metal nanocomposites and their oxide NPs have motivated the basic research due to their excellent * Corresponding author. E-mail address: ajay_t_2000@yahoo.com (A. Tripathi). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Alloys and Compounds journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jalcom https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2020.157871 0925-8388/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Journal of Alloys and Compounds 859 (2021) 157871